A Biography Of Joseph Priestley
Back in the 1700’s there was a whole lot of important stuff going on, a bunch of colonies were becoming states, France was chopping people’s heads off1, and Isaac Newton just figured out about gravity and was dropping that on the science world2. Ben Franklin was busy being brilliant making glasses and playing with lightening3. Charles Darwin was evolving some big ideas as he was floating around the Galapagos Islands4. So, if you missed this story I will have to forgive you, but it’s too bad because this is a really good one. And it’s 90% true.
It’s about this guy named Priestly; Joseph Priestly. Which is a funny name because he was kind of a priest. He was a minister in the Church of England. So, Pastor Priestley’s a fun guy and almost …show more content…
More specifically, scientific observation. 7
Watching stuff happen and writing it down, then watching what doesn’t happen and writing that down, then writing down his thoughts about what happened and what didn’t …show more content…
A little wet maybe but, whatya-gonna-do.
Okay now here is where we lose people because this next part is going to sound crazy and stupid and confused all at once so you will want to give up on me…
In the 17th and 18 century people believed in this thing called phlogiston, they thought it was what made stuff burn.11
PHLOGISTON is this thing... what everyone thought was this thing that made stuff burn. If something was phlogisticated it burned if it was dephlogisticated it did not burn.
So what the honorable Mr. Joseph Priestly did was dephlogisticate the air.
Now with this new question rolling around and bumping into the other one about why glass jars kill small animals things start to happen. Priestly is still not at all clear what is happening, but he keeps writing everything down and he keeps thinking and questioning.
He start all the experiment over with jars of dephlogisticated air. Things are exactly as he, and probably you, predicted. They all die just faster than before.
He wrote about how frustrated and annoyed and angry he was that he could not understand this.
Dearest BFF
“EVERYTHING I put in a jar
It’s about this guy named Priestly; Joseph Priestly. Which is a funny name because he was kind of a priest. He was a minister in the Church of England. So, Pastor Priestley’s a fun guy and almost …show more content…
More specifically, scientific observation. 7
Watching stuff happen and writing it down, then watching what doesn’t happen and writing that down, then writing down his thoughts about what happened and what didn’t …show more content…
A little wet maybe but, whatya-gonna-do.
Okay now here is where we lose people because this next part is going to sound crazy and stupid and confused all at once so you will want to give up on me…
In the 17th and 18 century people believed in this thing called phlogiston, they thought it was what made stuff burn.11
PHLOGISTON is this thing... what everyone thought was this thing that made stuff burn. If something was phlogisticated it burned if it was dephlogisticated it did not burn.
So what the honorable Mr. Joseph Priestly did was dephlogisticate the air.
Now with this new question rolling around and bumping into the other one about why glass jars kill small animals things start to happen. Priestly is still not at all clear what is happening, but he keeps writing everything down and he keeps thinking and questioning.
He start all the experiment over with jars of dephlogisticated air. Things are exactly as he, and probably you, predicted. They all die just faster than before.
He wrote about how frustrated and annoyed and angry he was that he could not understand this.
Dearest BFF
“EVERYTHING I put in a jar